A further conversation betrayed to the forester that the strangers were Venetians, and the result of it was that he permitted them to depart without hindrance, or without accepting the smallest indemnity.
Several years passed away; but every St. John's Day the forester saw and spoke with the same three strangers.
At last, one sultry summer afternoon, he threw himself down under a tree, and soon sank into a deep sleep.
How long he had slept he could not tell; as he opened his eyes he saw himself in a perfectly strange place, in which directly before him rose a stately, wonderful castle, surrounded by a high wall.
Terrified, the forester gazed around. It was certain that he had never before seen the neighbourhood, and that he had been transplanted from Scharzfels to the spot by enchantment.
In the anguish of his spirit he said the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, prayers for storms, and all the others he could think of, all mingled in the wildest confusion, like one who had taken leave of his senses.
But whether it was that he had left out a word, or was not earnest and devotional enough, the castle and its enclosing walls stood immovable.
The terrified man knew of nothing better to do than to resign himself to his fate, and to observe more closely his surroundings.
Dark cypresses rose behind the stone walls, and fig trees thrust their wonderfully crooked fingers forward, as if they would draw him in; shining lizards crept up the wall, glanced at him with their glittering eyes, and then wriggled hurriedly into the garden, which he could see through a grated gate under a great arch.
Behind and among the shrubbery and trees he could see all sorts of marble figures; goat-footed heathen gods, making awful faces; small hump-backed dwarfs with cocked hats; hunters with puffed-out cheeks blowing the horn; ladies with farthingales and horse-heads; urns around which salamanders, dragons, and other poisonous worms, with open jaws and red tongues, dragged their slimy lengths; and many other indescribable, diabolical objects.